IBIO: A Wannabe Ebola Player Infecting Buyers with False Hope

by Melissa Davis - 10/23/2014 10:02:00 AM

Shame on iBio (Nasdaq: IBIO) for pulling a dangerous stunt that could soon cost its shareholders a staggering fortune. No matter how tempted IBIO might have felt to further capitalize on the Ebola scare – or how thrilled it must be with the immediate results – the company should have known better than to hype a vague possibility so remote that it looks downright farfetched.

Get ready for the truth to unfold and reality to exact its inevitable toll.

Last week, in fact, the head of the government-funded lab where IBIO would like to offer its services, virtually ruled out the likelihood of any changes to the existing process to at all. Look at the revealing comments shared by Dr. Brett Girior, chief executive of the health science center at Texas A&M, in the following excerpt from a recent media report:

“’We believe there are substantial opportunities to increase the yield of ZMapp’ (the new Ebola treatment) in plants while keeping the product the same,’ Giroir said in an interview. The compound needs to be identical to what Mapp (the maker of the drug) has already vetted in animals, ‘or you would have to go back to the beginning for safety testing,’ he said.”

Based upon the information that we’ve uncovered while conducting our extensive research, we feel so confident that IBIO will play no role in the urgent mass-production of ZMapp that we dare the company to share any concrete evidence that clearly suggests otherwise. We also strongly encourage bullish investors to present the same type of request to IBIO or -- better yet -- Caliber Biotherapeutics, the firm that IBIO likes to treat as its potential ticket to the ZMapp production line, since they have put so much money on the line. We highly doubt that they will feel quite so confident in their investment once they finish that exercise, but we certainly invite them to share any feedback that might prove us wrong as well.

Just ask Mapp how much it depended on both Icon and KBP throughout the process that led to that celebrated breakthrough.

“Two partnerships were crucial to us in the development of the plant system for ZMapp: Icon Genetics AG (Halle, Germany) and Kentucky BioProcessing (KBP, Owensboro, KY),” Mapp emphasizes on its own website. “Icon pioneered vectors for engineering Nicotania (a low-nicotine tobacco plant) to produce pharmaceuticals. KBP specializes in GMP manufacturing of therapeutic proteins” in that same kind of plant.

Mapp has shared credit with Icon and KBP in the media, too. This summer, in fact, The New York Times – none other than the self-proclaimed “newspaper of record” itself – specifically reported that Icon had developed the system used to introduce the genes from modified antibodies into tobacco plants and ultimately produce the new Ebola drug. By now, many other media outlets – ranging from Time magazine to all sorts of trade publications -- have cited Icon as the firm responsible for providing the unique delivery system required for that process as well.

Given that sort of publicity, IBIO must surely know the truth at this point. Unless the company has somehow managed to completely overlook Icon for some inexplicable reason, however, it must have decided to conveniently pretend as that German firm – far more establishedthan itself – doesn’t exist at all. Mere days ago, in fact, a company spokesman reportedly told the press that “any lab that wants to make a ZMapp vaccine using plant-based technology would have to license it from IBIO” itself.

Wow. Talk about a bold statement. Perhaps IBIO should have decided to just kept its mouth shut.

IBIO better not count on such amazing results next time, however. By then, after all, investors will know all about this dirty trick.

*Important Disclosure: The owners of TheStreetSweeper established a short position in IBIO ahead of the publication of this report and stand to profit on any future declines in the stock price. As a matter of policy, however, TheStreetSweeper prohibits members of its editorial staff -- including the author of this story -- from taking financial positions in any of the companies that they cover. To contact Melissa Davis, the senior editor of TheStreetSweeper and the author of this story, please send an email to editor@thestreetsweeper.org.